By Ashley Bradley/ne news editor
Be your own hero.
This is the tagline for Whip It, Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut for the big screen that opened Oct. 2.
Bliss Cavender, played by Ellen Page, is a 17-year-old who can’t wait to finish high school and get out of Bodeen, a quaint fictional town near Austin.
After Bliss and her best friend Pash, played by Alia Shawkat, attend a roller derby game, Bliss decides to try out for the local Austin team called the Hurl Scouts.
Though derby girl Maggie Mayhem, played by Kristen Wiig from Saturday Night Live, tells her that all participants must be 21, Bliss decides she wants to audition. After making a joke that she hasn’t roller-skated since she wore Barbie skates, she pulls out her old, worn-out roller shoes and begins to practice.
At the audition, she not only makes the team but also proves to be a faster skater than current team members. Later in the movie, her lie of being 22 presents problems when antagonist and toughest derby girl Iron Maven, played by Juliette Lewis, finds out.
Though deciding not to tell her small-town conservative parents about the roller team, Bliss, also known as derby girl Babe Ruthless, continues to get better and better at the sport.
This movie is a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl who succeeds at her talent, loses her virginity to a cheating boy in a band and fights with her mother about different plans and goals for the future.
Any moviegoer who has been a teenager, or has one of her own, will have perspective on Bliss’ situations.
In the end, audience members leave the theater feeling both enlightened and uplifted. Drew Barrymore’s movie is both hilarious and eye-opening. If that is not enough, she also plays a stoner derby girl named Smashley Simpson.
If that isn’t a good reason to see a movie, then you could just see it because it mostly takes place in Austin.
Whether the characters are walking through downtown, coming out of the Alamo Draft house on Sixth Street or partying at local pubs, the movie is rich in Austin culture.
